CHAPTER VI--THE BATTLE BEGUN

  Cosette in her shadow, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire.Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, slowly drew togetherthese two beings, all charged and all languishing with the stormyelectricity of passion, these two souls which were laden with love astwo clouds are laden with lightning, and which were bound to overflowand mingle in a look like the clouds in a flash of fire.

  The glance has been so much abused in love romances that it has finallyfallen into disrepute. One hardly dares to say, nowadays, that twobeings fell in love because they looked at each other. That is the waypeople do fall in love, nevertheless, and the only way. The rest isnothing, but the rest comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than thesegreat shocks which two souls convey to each other by the exchange ofthat spark.

  At that particular hour when Cosette unconsciously darted that glancewhich troubled Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he had also launcheda look which disturbed Cosette.

  He caused her the same good and the same evil.

  She had been in the habit of seeing him for a long time, and she hadscrutinized him as girls scrutinize and see, while looking elsewhere.Marius still considered Cosette ugly, when she had already begun tothink Marius handsome. But as he paid no attention to her, the young manwas nothing to her.

  Still, she could not refrain from saying to herself that he hadbeautiful hair, beautiful eyes, handsome teeth, a charming tone of voicewhen she heard him conversing with his comrades, that he held himselfbadly when he walked, if you like, but with a grace that was all hisown, that he did not appear to be at all stupid, that his whole personwas noble, gentle, simple, proud, and that, in short, though he seemedto be poor, yet his air was fine.

  On the day when their eyes met at last, and said to each other thosefirst, obscure, and ineffable things which the glance lisps, Cosette didnot immediately understand. She returned thoughtfully to the house inthe Rue de l'Ouest, where Jean Valjean, according to his custom, hadcome to spend six weeks. The next morning, on waking, she thought ofthat strange young man, so long indifferent and icy, who now seemed topay attention to her, and it did not appear to her that this attentionwas the least in the world agreeable to her. She was, on the contrary,somewhat incensed at this handsome and disdainful individual. Asubstratum of war stirred within her. It struck her, and the idea causedher a wholly childish joy, that she was going to take her revenge atlast.

  Knowing that she was beautiful, she was thoroughly conscious, thoughin an indistinct fashion, that she possessed a weapon. Women play withtheir beauty as children do with a knife. They wound themselves.

  The reader will recall Marius' hesitations, his palpitations, histerrors. He remained on his bench and did not approach. This vexedCosette. One day, she said to Jean Valjean: "Father, let us stroll abouta little in that direction." Seeing that Marius did not come to her,she went to him. In such cases, all women resemble Mahomet. And then,strange to say, the first symptom of true love in a young man istimidity; in a young girl it is boldness. This is surprising, and yetnothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach eachother and assuming, each the other's qualities.

  That day, Cosette's glance drove Marius beside himself, and Marius'glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went away confident, and Cosetteuneasy. From that day forth, they adored each other.

  The first thing that Cosette felt was a confused and profoundmelancholy. It seemed to her that her soul had become black since theday before. She no longer recognized it. The whiteness of soul in younggirls, which is composed of coldness and gayety, resembles snow. Itmelts in love, which is its sun.

  Cosette did not know what love was. She had never heard the word utteredin its terrestrial sense. On the books of profane music which enteredthe convent, _amour_ (love) was replaced by _tambour_ (drum) or_pandour_. This created enigmas which exercised the imaginations of the_big girls_, such as: _Ah, how delightful is the drum! _ or, _Pityis not a pandour_. But Cosette had left the convent too early to haveoccupied herself much with the "drum." Therefore, she did not know whatname to give to what she now felt. Is any one the less ill because onedoes not know the name of one's malady?

  She loved with all the more passion because she loved ignorantly. Shedid not know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, useful ordangerous, eternal or temporary, allowable or prohibited; she loved. Shewould have been greatly astonished, had any one said to her: "You do notsleep? But that is forbidden! You do not eat? Why, that is very bad! Youhave oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must not be! Youblush and turn pale, when a certain being clad in black appears at theend of a certain green walk? But that is abominable!" She would not haveunderstood, and she would have replied: "What fault is there of mine ina matter in which I have no power and of which I know nothing?"

  It turned out that the love which presented itself was exactly suited tothe state of her soul. It was a sort of admiration at a distance, a mutecontemplation, the deification of a stranger. It was the apparition ofyouth to youth, the dream of nights become a reality yet remaininga dream, the longed-for phantom realized and made flesh at last, buthaving as yet, neither name, nor fault, nor spot, nor exigence, nordefect; in a word, the distant lover who lingered in the ideal, achimæra with a form. Any nearer and more palpable meeting would havealarmed Cosette at this first stage, when she was still half immersed inthe exaggerated mists of the cloister. She had all the fears of childrenand all the fears of nuns combined. The spirit of the convent, withwhich she had been permeated for the space of five years, was still inthe process of slow evaporation from her person, and made everythingtremble around her. In this situation he was not a lover, he was noteven an admirer, he was a vision. She set herself to adoring Marius assomething charming, luminous, and impossible.

  As extreme innocence borders on extreme coquetry, she smiled at him withall frankness.

  Every day, she looked forward to the hour for their walk withimpatience, she found Marius there, she felt herself unspeakably happy,and thought in all sincerity that she was expressing her whole thoughtwhen she said to Jean Valjean:--

  "What a delicious garden that Luxembourg is!"

  Marius and Cosette were in the dark as to one another. They did notaddress each other, they did not salute each other, they did not knoweach other; they saw each other; and like stars of heaven which areseparated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing at each other.

  It was thus that Cosette gradually became a woman and developed,beautiful and loving, with a consciousness of her beauty, and inignorance of her love. She was a coquette to boot through her ignorance.